Hey all,
I've got a '91 Honda Prelude that came from California. The shell is incredibly rust free, but the trim is super baked. The car is currently stripped to a bare shell and in the hands of a bodyshop for a full colour change and other body fixing. Some of the trim that came off it isn't fit to be re-used, but even the trims I've saved from other northern cars are far from good enough to use as-is. Pretty much everything has some degree of sun damage. Honda used aluminum with some sort of tapered flexible edging all around it, dipped in a rubber of some sort.
Here's an example of the trim found under the door windows:
My current method (and what I've spent more of my evening doing) is using a razor blade to cut the rubber in a straight line where it goes overtop of the aluminum. Then sand down the exposed aluminum underneath and paint it all. My body guy says strangely enough a certain brand of rattle can who's name escapes me at the moment is the best for this.
The issue is that some trims have damage to the flexible edging that extends beyond the aluminum bit. Anyone have a way to fix this? I'm willing to spend money to fix this properly, and if it were still possible to buy them new I'd jump on the chance. Unfortunately they've been discontinued for a while. I wish I could 3D print new ones. Or if I knew how Honda even made them in the first place I could maybe replicate the rubber coating and edging on top of the original aluminum underlay.
